BPM - Beats per millennium
Simona Dabija
BPM-Beats per Millennium is a solo performance shaped by the stories of people who experienced Romania’s party and clubbing scenes from the last decades-an exploration of dance as atmosphere, pulse, and collective residue. Rather than retelling history through facts, the performance evokes a sensory experience, guided by bodily sequences that express tension, release, and resistance.
The work unfolds through a constantly evolving bodily dramaturgy, where the dancer’s body becomes a living space, absorbing and transforming the echoes of dance floors from the past and present. Her movements emerge as traces of club dances reimagined, distorted, and reshaped into new expressions that flicker between decades, styles, and emotional states.
For the choreographer, the dance floor becomes a meeting ground, a place for exchanging experiences and breaking down barriers, where communities naturally take shape. The body acts simultaneously as a receptor and an amplifier, sensing, generating, and transforming the energies that reshape identity and nurture a deep sense of belonging.
- BPM - Beats per Millennium
- 40’, RO, dance performance, 2024
- choreography, performance SIMONA DABIJA
- original music VLAICU GOLCEA
- dramaturgical support ANDREEA NOVAC
- researchers IONUȚ DULĂMIȚĂ, BOGDAN IANCU
- light design MARIUS COSTACHE, DRAGOȘ MĂRGINEANU
- producer SIMONA DEACONESCU
- project assistant GEORGIA ELZA MĂCIUCEANU
Simona Dabija
Romanian dance artist Simona Dabija has developed a practice focused on a hybrid embodiment where mechanical and organic movement coexist. Her dance challenges perceptions of the human form, by deconstructing the movement through rhythm and speed. She holds BA and MA degrees in Choreography from UNATC Bucharest. She remains the main collaborator of choreographer Simona Deaconescu and a core member of Tangaj Collective, performing and teaching within the company for the past 10 years. In parallel, she has been developing projects with independent spaces and collectives as well as state institutions in Bucharest, such as Linotip, /SAC, Delazero, CNDB, Teatrelli, Odeon Theatre, Masca Theatre.
In 2024, she premiered her first solo piece, “BPM-Beats per Millennium”, part of the Iridescent Festival at CNDB, and co-created the performative installation “Original Spaces/Legalized Gestures”, together with choreographer Ioana Marchidan.
In 2026, Simona was selected to be part of Aerowaves Twenty26 with her solo creation. In the same year, she was part of the Moving Balkans coproduction programme “Duets Across Borders”, co-creating a new work alongside Bulgarian choreographer Deyan Georgiev. She received the CNDB Award in 2020 for her contribution to the growth of contemporary dance in Romania.
The presentation of this performance is part of Extended Bodies. Performative Routes, a cultural project co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The project does not necessarily represent the official position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN shall not be held liable for the program’s content or any use to which the program outcome might be put. These are the sole responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.
The project was carried out with the support of Cluj-Napoca City Hall and the Local Council.
